Starting Five

1. The A-Hole Mess: Here’s all we want. We want New York Yankee manager Joe Girardi to give Alex Rodriguez an at-bat tonight. Then we want A-Hole to foul one off into the stands (because we want a ball to be hit into the stands and I think we all know that it is too much to ask that he hit a home run). Then, a moment or two later, we want that foul ball to come rolling back onto the field of play with a phone number on it. Is that too much to ask?

2. Obama-Romney II: What will survive the next few cycles, and perhaps the next few weeks (months? years?) is the term “binders full of women.” It may also be the next advertising slogan for AnastasiaDate.com.

3. Meanwhile, the Yankees posed for a team photo before Game 4 of the ALCS, which they currently trail 3-0.

4. Manzi and Manti: Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M’s redshirt freshman quarterback, and Manti Teo’, Notre Dame’s senior linebacker, are gaining steam as Heisman candidates. Johnny Football can bolster his candidacy with a home win this week vs. No. 6 LSU (we like this upset pick) while Te’o totally racked on Jim Rome’s show earlier today.

5. It’s not about the bike, but it is about the lie. Lance Armstrong resigns as chairman of the Livestrong Foundation and on the same day is dropped by both Nike and Anheuser-Busch (two fly-by-night outfits). We get the feeling that Armstrong wants to go full-bore Nathan R. Jessup here, to attack the collective naivete of everyone who cannot believe he cheated. He wants to say, “Everybody cheated, so we were basically all on the same level, and I was still the best! AND, I beat cancer!” Still, mark him down as just another former Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year who proved not worthy of the honor (they never improved upon the first honoree, Sir Roger Bannister). We remember interviewing former Notre Dame wide receiver Jeff Samardzija in autumn of 2006, after pitcher Kenny Rogers had been accused of doctoring baseballs with pine tar during the World Series. Samardzija, a pitcher himself, grinned and said, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” We’d probably be upset if we knew how many of our heroes subscribe to that mantra.

 

Reserves

We’re sorry, but didn’t we tweet or mention EXACTLY THIS last week? (apologies for the accompanying Screamin’ A audio)

Mental Floss’ list of the “25 Most Powerful Shows of the Past 25 Years.” Not “best shows”, so prepare to be disappointed or confused.

The Indiana Hoosiers are No. 1 in the NCAA coaches basketball poll. Kentucky is No. 3. And, in football, both Alabama and Notre Dame are undefeated. So, Welcome to the late 1970s.

Quotable: “Washing dishes that are already clean is like giving tax breaks to people who are already rich.” 

— Someone more clever than us (we forget whom) on Twitter yesterday

 

Flori-duh: Allen Blair Casey may have had one hand in his pocket, but he certainly didn’t have the other one making a peace sign. When the prosecutor makes his closing argument, here’s hoping he begins with, “What it all boils down to…”

Blake Lively got married again?!? Oh, this time it was as Serena Van Der Woodsen on “Gossip Girl.”

Matt Taibbi makes a non-partisan plea for elections to be cheaper and shorter and for the media to stop covering them as if they are a sports event. Taibbi is a twig of sanity being tossed about in a class-five rapids of media tumult, so good luck with that (we’re with you, Matty).

On this subject: How come each presidential candidate must pay for air time to advertise, but the networks do not need to bid for broadcast rights to the presidential debates?

Once upon a time, Sports Illustrated hired outside writers because (are you sitting down?) they were truly gifted, entertaining w-r-i-t-e-r-s. Men such as Dan Jenkins and Roy Blount, Jr., and yes, Rick Reilly, were not about to break stories such as the cover story that  new hires Thayer Evans and Pete Thamel have penned on Tyrann Mathieu, alias “The Honey Badger”, but they didn’t have to do so. They were simply sublime weavers of tales with a gift for making sentences sing.

We have yet to read the piece — here it is — but we do know and like both men and consider them outstanding reporters. Our only qualm with SI is that it has forgotten what it is, or what it should be: a repository for non pareil sportswriting. You know who would be a wonderful hire for that, or any, mag? Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal: creative thinker and entertaining humorist. Here’s his piece from earlier this week on “Yankee Panic.”

Doctor Dr., Dr. Dre, Dr. Drew (see what we did there?)

More on Mathieu, SI: It is kind of funny — and by that we mean sad — that SI devoted so much of its resources to uncovering a story about Tyrann Mathieu, a story that most likely disappointed them in its lack of Switzerian scandal when they were done reporting it. And yet still the magazine which, according to the Mathieu family, refused to honor their requests not to be interviewed (sound like any dogged recruiters you know?), put the Honey Badger on its cover this week. Consider that the next time a do-righteous columnist scolds the NCAA for exploiting its athletes. As a woman mentioned earlier in today’s post might say, “Isn’t it ironic?”

 

We cannot wait for Obama-Romney III. That’s the one where they introduce a brash new character, Mr. T-Party. We pity the foo’s.

Bill Murray may understand the secret of living well — have fun, make people laugh — better than anyone who has ever lived. Here’s yet another example. By the way, Mitch Glazer must be a heckuva guy for Murray and his sibs to do this to him repeatedly. You only tease the people you love (Guy Code 101).

Not that the Yankees will miss him or anything, but we just looked this up and Derek Jeter is the all-time leader in the postseason in (deep breath) Hits(200), Runs (111), Doubles (32) and Triples (5, tied with a few others). Okay, he also leads in strikeouts. Carlos Beltran of the St. Louis Cardinals, by the way, is the all-time postseason leader in Slugging Percentage: .838

Answer the question, Paul! Answer the question! JUST ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!!!!!

Ryan Lochte will be the celebrity picker on College Gameday from Gainesville this Saturday. We’d have gone with Andy Staples ourselves.